Socioeconomic outcomes of agricultural land use change in Southeast Asia

Jonas L Appelt,Jasper Van Vliet,Peter H Verburg,Diana C Garcia Rojas

doi:10.1007/s13280-022-01712-4

Abstract

Agricultural land use is transforming rapidly in Southeast Asia, often supported by development policies aiming primarily at economic growth. However, the socioeconomic outcomes of these changes for smallholder farmers remain unclear. Here, we systematically review cases of agricultural land use change in Southeast Asia to assess their socioeconomic outcomes and potential trade-off and synergies in these outcomes. Of the 126 reviewed cases, we find mostly positive outcomes for income (SDG 1, 100 cases) and employment (SDG 8, 11 cases), while outcomes on health (SDG 3, 9 cases) were mixed, and outcomes for food security (SDG 2, 44 cases), gender equality (SDG 5, 13 cases), and economic equality (SDG 10, 14 cases) were mostly negative. Studies describing multiple outcomes show indications of synergies between income and food security, and between income and employment, but also potential trade-offs between income and economic equality. In addition, we find that economic land concessions result in multiple negative outcomes more often than other types of land governance regimes. The results provide evidence that economic gains from agricultural land use change often come at a cost of other dimensions of sustainable development.

Highlights

Agricultural land use change is a dominant transformational trend in Southeast Asia, with different types of land use change taking place concurrently
Our study focuses on Southeast Asia because it is a highly dynamic region in terms of agricultural change, including the development of smallholders as well as the emergence of large-scale land acquisitions, potentially affecting multiple dimensions of sustainable development (Rigg et al 2016; Schoenberger et al 2017)
Socioeconomic outcomes of agricultural land use change and their relations We find that most of the documented cases of agricultural land use changes in Southeast Asia have led to an improvement in local income (SDG 1) and in employment (SDG 8), but have led to predominantly negative outcomes on food security (SDG 2), gender equality (SDG 5), and economic equality (SDG 10), and to mixed results on health outcomes (SDG 3)

Summary

Introduction

Agricultural land use change is a dominant transformational trend in Southeast Asia, with different types of land use change taking place concurrently. Several countries in the region have seen an increase in the area of economic land concessions (ELCs), which are typically large to very large in scale, and managed as businesses rather than traditional family farms (Hall 2011; Nolte et al 2016). These ELCs sometime replace existing production landscapes, dominated by a mosaic of smallholder fields, orchards, and forests, but often lead to the expansion of agricultural land into unused forest areas (Hurni and Fox 2018; Andrianto et al 2019; Davis et al 2020). Indonesia’s land policies have promoted economic development through oil

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